


And You Smile (While You're Twisting The Knife In My Stomach)

by Blackrising



Category: The Wolf Among Us
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, DubCon Bordering on NonCon, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, Knifeplay, Light Dom/sub, Power Play, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 11:42:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4099699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackrising/pseuds/Blackrising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary likes her job. No, she loves it. The violence, the fear, the adrenaline, the blood...all of it gives her the warm fuzzies. But sometimes, just sometimes, she needs something else to take the edge off. And that's where Nerissa comes in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And You Smile (While You're Twisting The Knife In My Stomach)

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any reservations about dubious consent/prostitution or rough sex, turn back now. Don't say I didn't warn you. (It's Bloody Mary, people. You should know what you're getting into.)
> 
> Title: "Lillian" by Plus 44

Nerissa nearly threw her tube of lipgloss across the room when instead of one, there were suddenly two faces staring back at her from the mirror.

"Why so nervous, little fish? Did little old me scare you?"

Mary's face lit up at that thought as she gracefully stepped through the smooth glass surface to perch on the dressing table. Nerissa instinctively leaned back in her cheap plastic chair, the corners of her mouth pulling down in a frown.

"You're not supposed to be back here, Mary. Georgie wouldn't like it."

The short-haired woman cackled, carelessly wiping at the dried blood on her chin and cheekbones. "Please, do tell him. I'm sure his entrails splattering the walls would greatly improve this room's atmosphere."

Mary jumped off the table, circling the other woman until she stood behind her. Nerissa avoided looking into the mirror, shutting her eyes and pulling her shoulders taut when one of Mary's fingers ran from the tip of her ear to her collarbone and her throat.

She could feel the blood on the woman's hand vividly, as though it was seeping into her skin.

Mary's fingers wrapped around her throat and tightened, the barest hint of a squeeze making the breath catch in Nerissa's throat. The woman leaned down, lips brushing against the shell of her ear.

"Tell me, little one, are you up for a bit of playtime?"

Nerissa almost laughed at that, at the insinuation that she had any choice in the matter. Bloody Mary was the Crooked Man's right hand, his enforcer and bodyguard. She could have her pick of the girls at the Pudding n' Pie, and no one would think to tell her otherwise - not if they wanted to live. One of the _privileges_ of working so closely with the Crooked Man.

"We're...we're not open right now," she tried, voice quiet and tinny and not at all as forceful as she had intended.

Mary's snicker echoed off the walls of the messy dressing room, her hand simultaneously gripping tighter, restricting her air supply, but not cutting it off entirely. It was a warning, and a promise. "Well, then we have all the time in the world, do we not?"

Nerissa closed her eyes and breathed out shakily. It was the cue Mary needed to raise the fingers of her other hand to the prostitute's lips, swiping them over the soft flesh.

"Open."

She obeyed, as she had done so many times before, and took Mary's middle finger into her mouth. The metallic taste of blood and steel hit her tongue, a reminder of every person Mary had ever killed and every weapon she'd used to do so.

It was a ritual of sorts, one that Mary insisted on. Nerissa had never asked about it, and she didn't need to. Mary thrived on power, on seeing others squirm, and nothing pleased her more than the thought of corrupting Nerissa, tainting her with the blood forever burned into the skin of her hands.  
Nerissa was far from innocent, far from the wide-eyed girl in love she'd once been, but that was of no concern to the other woman.

She closed her lips around the digit, swirling her tongue over the rough pad of her finger, the calluses that felt far more familiar than she wanted to admit.  
Nerissa kept her eyes closed.  
She'd made the mistake of looking at Mary's face, once. She'd seen the grotesquely stretched grin and the darkening eyes and the look of honest-to-god _approval_ written in the twists of her expression as Nerissa had licked and sucked on her finger, and it had sent a disgustingly intense wave of arousal and heat through her.

Nerissa had made a point of avoiding a repeat of it since then, because that was the only thing that brought some balance to their encounters, the only thing that granted Nerissa some tiny sliver of power of her own.

Mary needed this more than she did.

She hadn't noticed it right away, or even the first few times Mary had come to her. It had been a gradual realization. Nerissa had sensed it, in the subtle tensing of her shoulders, the way her grip tightened when Nerissa wanted to pull away, the rawness that poured from her grinning mouth and the wild look hidden behind casual cruelty. Mary needed this, and it was entirely up to Nerissa to give it to her.

Mary could take a lot of things from her by force. Her body, her sanity and even her life if she desired it. But what she needed from Nerissa was willing surrender, a conscious decision to give in, and that was something neither she, the Crooked Man or Georgie could force.  
Nerissa wasn't kidding herself into believing that she was the one in power here or that she could prevent this if she wanted to, but it lay in her hands whether to provide or deny the satisfaction Mary craved.

She clung to that knowledge with sheer desperation. If the tables should turn, if there should ever come a time where Nerissa needed Mary more than the other way around, she'd have well and truly lost.

And so, Nerissa kept her eyes closed. She didn't scrape her teeth over the finger in her mouth, didn't suck it deeper, even though some twisted part of her wanted to.  
Mary pulled it back with a wet pop and Nerissa bit the inside of her cheek to swallow the hint of disappointment.

"Open your eyes, Kitten. Look at old Auntie Mary."

Nerissa ignored the mocking words, gripping the armrests of her chair tightly. The silence stretched and the hand around her throat vanished. Only the warmth of Mary's body - moving from her back to her front - let Nerissa know that Mary was still there.  
She didn't have to look to know that Mary leaned down until they were face to face, her breath grazing her lips.

"My sweet, little Mermaid, do you really believe I don't know what you're doing?"

Something warm and wet traced over Nerissa's cheek and Mary's contended 'mhm' made her realize she'd been crying.

"Are you so desperate you have to lie to yourself? That you can't possibly admit you're enjoying this?"

Nerissa's eyes snapped open to glare at the woman mere centimeters from her face.

"I am not," she pressed through gritted teeth.

Mary's insane grin broadened and too late did Nerissa realize that she'd played right into her hands. Whatever game they were playing, she had lost the first round.  
Her expression shifted back to the neutral sort of misery she'd perfected over the years. Not disgusted enough to turn off her clients, but also not enthusiastic enough to warrant any sort of extra attention.

Only a twitch of Mary's lips suggested that she wasn't entirely pleased with what she was seeing.

"We will see," she murmured, before lunging forward to press her lips against the underside of Nerissa's jaw. Nerissa's head fell back almost immediatly, the shock of soft lips running along her throat too sudden to allow her time to think.  
She ignored the triumphant smirk that stretched against her skin and pressed her lips together stubbornly, digging her fingers into the fabric of her dress.

Mary chuckled. "What, not even a teeny tiny gasp? I am saddened, truly."

Nerissa opened her mouth to answer - preferably something witty and scathing - when the other woman opened her mouth and bit down where neck met shoulder. Hard.  
She cried out and couldn't tell whether it was because of the pain that fanned out from her neck or the pleasure washing over her with every pulse of blood underneath the abused skin.

It was an inevitable consequence of her encounters with Mary. Not being able to tell whether it was pain or pleasure or quite simply both that made her heart beat faster. Not knowing whether she wanted it to stop or happen again.

Mary tutted, soothing the reddened bite mark with a long lick of her tongue. "And here I thought I'd have to make an effort."  
She hooked both of her hands under Nerissa's thighs, lifting her out of her seat effortlessly, and straightened, forcing the prostitute's legs to wrap around her narrow hips. Presented with no other choice short of letting them dangle at her side awkwardly, Nerissa put her hands on Mary's shoulders.

The bodyguard hummed and turned around, setting her down on top of the vanity. Mary didn't release her, simply pulled her hips closer to press their bodies together snugly.

Mary's body fit her image perfectly, planes and angles and sharp edges like the broken pieces of a mirror digging into Nerissa's softer flesh.

What worried her weren't the flashes of glass she thought she saw at times, the deceptively pleasant warmth of Mary's skin or even that underneath the faded smell of blood and death, Nerissa sometimes detected another scent - skin and night air and something very personal - that was almost pleasant.

No, what worried Nerissa was that every one of Mary's sharp edges fit into her skin and flesh and bones perfectly. Potruding hipbones nestled against the velvety flesh on the inside of her thighs, thin fingers dug harmlessly into her hips, a pointy chin buried gently into her shoulder.

Shoulders, elbows, knees, all of them had their place and they shouldn't slot together so easily. Nerissa didn't _want_ them to. She wanted it to hurt, to be uncomfortable, to dislike the lines and spikes of Mary's body as fiercely as she should.

"Feel like confessing yet?" Mary taunted, rolling her hips into the other woman's. Nerissa's breath caught in her throat and she turned her head away, staring at the old flyers and too-bright posters decorating the atrocious wallpaper.  
A puff of air against the side of her neck made her shudder. "You're all business, aren't you?"

Seizing the opportunity, Nerissa pursed her lips and shrugged. "You're a customer, just like all the others who watch me dance and pay to drag their grubby hands all over me."

Mary's eyes narrowed.

Nerissa knew she was playing a dangerous game here, but the part of her that was tired of being pushed around, of being ignored and treated like a glorified slave urged her to continue and assert a power of her own. "Men pay for my body all the time. What makes you think you're any different from them? I have three other appointments today and I'll have to fuck all of them, just like I have to fuck you."

The vitrolic words slipped from her tongue with surprising ease and made a thin vein begin to pulse in the bodyguard's forehead.

Warning bells blared in her head and she knew she should stop while she still could, but the words continued to flow out of her without her consent.

"If you're so sure I'm enjoying this," Nerissa hissed, brows drawing together in a grimace. "What makes you think it's because of _you_? What makes you think I don't enjoy letting the others fuck me?"

She laughed dryly, and landed the proverbial final blow. "What makes you think _they_ don't make me come harder than you ever could?"

The insinuation left a foul taste in Nerissa's mouth, remembering the nausea she felt everytime she had to open her legs for another stranger, everytime she had to hide her disgust as they pounded away at her.

Something in Mary's face twitched, cruel amusement gone entirely. Nerissa couldn't tell whether she believed her, but just as predicted, the mere suggestion that she might be nothing more than an annoyance - and a mediocre one at that - made a glint of murder light up her eyes.

There was a beat, a tense second, and then Mary suddenly had her pressed against the mirror at her back, neck straining at the unnatural angle and the fingers around it.  
Her grin was back, wider than Nerissa had ever seen it. It seemed to blur and shift, revealing razor-sharp edges and blood-stained gums before reverting back to the even row of white teeth.

For the first time that day, for the first time since their encounters had become something of an uneasy habit, Nerissa felt fear, real, blood-curling fear, and she realized that she had made a grave mistake. She'd forgotten, just for a second, who she was dealing with, and it might very well be the end of her.

"Brave little mermaid," Mary drawled, emphasising the 'brave' with a painful squeeze of her hand around Nerissa's throat. "Standing your ground against me."

The bodyguard's other hand went to Nerissa's thigh, tapping a blunt nail against the sensitive skin. Nerissa shivered.

"Yes, so very brave..." Mary leaned forward until the mermaid had no choice but to look into her eyes. "And so very _stupid_."

Nerissa gasped in pain as the bodyguards nails dug into her leg, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to pierce the skin. Yet.  
Mary chuckled lowly and let up, stroking the abused skin in soothing, circular patterns. "But you are in luck, little mermaid. I have decided to forgive you for that little...act. Want to guess why?"

Nerissa shook her head weakly, distracted by the fingertips dancing along the skin of her inner thigh, up and underneath her short skirt.

"Because whatever anyone else might make you feel, we both know it can't compare to what _I_ make you feel."

The fingers disappeared behind Mary's back to retrieve a small, but vicious-looking knife. The sharp edge gleamed in the light of the low-hanging lamps and Nerissa felt her breath shorten, panic spreading in her chest.

"Because none of them can do what _I_ do."

Mary released her throat, but Nerissa didn't dare to move an inch, not with the tip of the knife tracing lazy patterns over her collarbones.  
"Now, you better be careful," the bodyguard chirped cheerily, cocking her head to the side. "Wouldn't want to cut anything important."

The first cut was shallow, barely deep enough to draw blood, but Nerissa hissed anyway, fingers curling around the edge of the dresser. The stinging sensation set her teeth on edge and she closed her eyes.

They flew open again when the other woman's mouth latched onto the wound, suckling the slow, steady trickle of blood from her skin. The new burst of pain was alleviated by a warm tongue gliding over the small cut.  
A pleased purr vibrated against her chest and Nerissa couldn't help but look down at the dark head of hair. Mary caught her gaze, giving a last, languid lick.

Nerissa gasped, the telltale pulse of arousal between her legs catching her off guard.

She watched the tip of the knife as it descended onto her skin again, cutting deeper and farther this time. The blood welled up and Mary waited until the very last moment - until the drop of red was just about to soak into the white of Nerissa's top - to catch it with her tongue and drag it upward, cleaning the pale skin of any last traces.

The next time Mary's knife cut into her flesh, Nerissa's hips jerked and her eyelids drooped. It drove the sharp edge deeper into her and her trembling hands found short, dark hair. Grinning, bloody lips closed around the incision even as Nerissa pulled and pushed at Mary's head, wanting her far away and impossibly closer at the same time.

Nerissa didn't notice the knife vanishing from Mary's hand until fingers slid underneath her short skirt, easily pushing past the fabric of her underwear and into the wetness she hadn't been fully aware of until now.

She bent her head back and gasped, pressing the other woman's mouth closer to her chest. Every pull on her inflamed skin felt like another cut, every swipe of tongue like the tearing of nerves, every brush of teeth like the rush of death.

The rough pads of Mary's fingers explored the sensitive flesh between Nerissa's legs, drawing feather-light circles around her clit or dipping teasingly into her entrance, never staying long enough to provide relief.

Mary giggled at the desperate movements of Nerissa's hips, drawing back until nothing but the tip of a single finger rested against heated flesh.

"Who would have thought," she mused idly, licking at the traces of blood around her mouth. "The Little Mermaid gets off on being cut and bled. Filthy girl."

There it was again, that goddamn look of _approval_. The one that made Nerissa feel like she'd given up her dignity and pride, yet set something in her chest aflame. The one that made her twitch against Mary's hand.

She stiffened. The delicate balance she'd worked so hard to achieve was shifting, moving in a direction she couldn't afford.

"No need to be shy now, Kitten. Tell me all about your deepest, darkest desires."

Suddenly the knife was back, cold metal pressing against the rapid pulse in Nerissa's throat. It wasn't enough to break the skin, but Nerissa knew that could change with a mere flick of Mary's wrist.  
At the same time, the fingers between her thighs began moving again, slowly and oh so deliberately. They hit all the right spots, tracing even circles around Nerissa's clit, and her body inexplicably slumped against the mirror at her back. She breathed in shakily and her white-knuckled grip shifted to Mary's shoulders.

The climb was a steady one. The constant movement of Mary's fingers made it impossible to take a break from the pleasure, to _breathe_ , and the knife at her throat became a distant thing in her mind, a promise more than a threat.

Nerissa approached the edge rapidly, legs spreading as far as they would go. She was about to tumble over, pressed her teeth together to prepare for the moan of relief that would undoubtedly crawl up her throat and then...then the fingers against her disappeared completely.

Her eyes shot open. She wanted to ask, to demand that Mary finish what she'd started, but it would mean admitting defeat. It would mean admitting that she needed this, needed Mary maybe as much as Mary needed her, and that was something she couldn't do.

"Don't look so disappointed," Mary tutted, lowering the knife. Nerissa regretted its loss almost instantly. "How many appointments did you say you have today? Two, three? I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to alleviate your frustrations."

She cackled, resuming the slow circling movements around the other woman's clit. Nerissa's hands fisted into the fabric of Mary's jacket, willing her to finish the job, but again she stopped just as Nerissa could taste the first flickers of climax.

There would be no other outlet for her. They both knew it. Her clients - every single one of them - made Nerissa feel dirty and used, nauseous at even the thought of their sweaty bodies and excited grunts.

Mary didn't. And that was the root of the problem, wasn't it?

She could choke her, cut her, deny her and give her more than she could handle and still Nerissa would claw into her skin, wrap herself around all her planes and angles and soothe them with her own soft flesh. Still she'd touch her blood-stained grin and feel more than broken glass.

"Please," she finally choked out and was disgusted at how easily the plea slipped from her lips.

Mary bared her teeth in something approaching a grin and traced the tip of the knife down the side of Nerissa's face.

"Good girl."

And then she swiped the metal, warm now from contact, across the swell of Nerissa's breasts and closed her teeth - not just her lips, her _teeth_ \- around the bleeding wound. An unbidden gasp broke from Nerissa's lips and then Mary's fingers began to move again - rough and hard this time, drawing small, tight figures around her already sensitive clit.

There was no time to consider the balance, the loss of what little power Nerissa had accumulated, not with Mary's mouth pulling blood from her body in time with her strokes.

Nerissa came.

Harder than she could remember doing in a long time and then her arms were wrapped around Mary's shoulders, pulling her in close until her sharp chin dug into the spot where shoulder met neck and Nerissa could fist one hand into soft black hair and the other into worn fabric.

She moaned her climax into the crook of Mary's neck, squeezing her eyes shut and breathing in the scent of stale blood and fresh skin. Long, deadly arms closed around her in return.

When she finally came down from her high, Nerissa sighed, body slumping forward into Mary's.

She was tired. Exhausted.

The already healing incisions on her chest smarted and she was distinctly aware of her smeared make-up - the lipstick she'd nibbled off, the mascara her tears had smudged beyond repair.

"Good girl," Mary repeated, quieter now. The haughty satisfaction in her tone was impossible to miss, but her arms stayed where they were, palms splayed securely across Nerissa's back.

Nerissa couldn't find it in her to refuse the comfort and she allowed her head to sink onto the other woman's shoulder.

Mary was blood and death. She was deceptively warm when she wanted to be. She was planes and angles and lines and knives. She was night air and skin.

She was someone who needed Nerissa, however twisted.

And sometimes, Nerissa thought as her hearbeat calmed and her fingers idly stroked the back of Mary's head, sometimes she needed her too.


End file.
